MARK. LAWRENCE

The Girl and the Mountain

Mark Lawrence

Just kept right on going after book one. Still love it. Keep filling in that Book Of The Ancestor trilogy lore and I personally liked the depth of the story here too and a lot of the characters. A lot less bratty rich kids I wanted to smack. Which really adds to the enjoyment!

Apiecalypse Jen

"A stunning new epic fantasy series following a girl who is cast out by her people and must fight with everything she has to survive, set in the same world as Red Sister. In some children, the old blood shows, giving them strength, speed, and mystical power. In the cities of Abeth's Corridor, such children are prized. But on the vast ice plains of Abeth, those traits lead children to burn bright and die young, and the discipline of the priests is harsh. Any child who shows signs of the old races is cast into the Pit of the Missing, never to be seen again. Yaz is only sixteen, but she feels a burgeoning gift and she knows the next gathering will be her last--the priests see everything, and her aberrance will not be tolerated. But then she is spared and her brother is identified as one of the broken and cast down into the pit. Stunned, awash with guilt and grief, she flings herself in after him. She expects to find death. Instead she finds a sprawling, secret civilization, where survival is even less assured than on the ice plains. And she soon realizes that this underground empire revolves around a great truth--and an even greater evil--that puts all of Abeth in danger"--

The Girl and the Stars

Let’s go Mark Lawrence! Okay. So. If you told me this book was written by the same person as Prince of Thorns I would call you a filthy liar but here we are. I loved it. But full disclosure I loved the whole book of the ancestor trilogy a lot. And this was the story of the ice tribes I didn’t know I needed. I liked that so much that was just like throwaway and passing references in the first series because fleshed out here. And I like that it’s a prequel. I like I like can you tell I liked it? If you haven’t read the book of the ancestor series you don’t need to read it to read this, but I would say pick one series or the other and then read one and then the other for maximum enjoyment. 

Life on the ice doesn't allow for weakness. Weakness only brings death. Once every few years, the tribes living on the ice come together for their children to be judged by the priests. If the child is deemed not strong enough for the ice, they are thrown into The Pit. Yaz is facing her second judgment and if she is cleared, then she will be marked as an adult. Her younger brother, Zeen, is facing judgment for the first time. When Zeen is pushed into the pit by the priest, Yaz loses all sense and jumps in after him. The world she ends up in is unexpected. Found by The Broken, she is taken in and taught about life under the ice, all while searching for her brother. Yaz faces unexpected dangers and new forces of power while living under the ice. Secrets are uncovered and she must understand them in order to overcome dangers unknown.

To preface this, I've not read any of Mark Lawrence's previous works. Although this series stands alone from his other books, I understand this trilogy is in the same world as another of his series. I am not sure if reading this previous series would have increased my enjoyment of this book or not, so be your own judge here if you'd like background knowledge on this fictional world he's created.

I liked the premise of this book, secrets, and mysteries that needed solving all while in a strange land hooked me. But the execution fell completely on its face, to be completely honest.

I think I must have missed a lot of world-building by not reading the previous books in the world because I felt very tossed into this Ice Land. While I'm all for not pandering to the reader and being really obvious about the world-building, I just felt like I was missing out on a lot. Granted, I can't say this for certain because I didn't read the previous books in this world, so I could be completely off-base here.

I found myself just not caring about the characters. Yaz was so boring. Her one goal in life was to save her brother. And in between these moments of reflecting on her brother, she was checking out all the eligible (and some non-eligible) men and how cute they were. Then throw in the love square. Because having a female teenage protagonist means any man around her age just wants her, of course. This book suffered from having too many characters to keep up with as well. The number of characters the reader is introduced to is absurd, especially because most of them aren't prominent enough to really remember that well either.

One thing that really bugged me, which really might not matter in the scheme of things, but really put me off was the naming of the rival group under the ice. They are called the Tainted. Makes sense because they are literally tainted from consuming the black ice (which is a whole thing I won't bother getting into). However, when referring to a singular member of the Tainted, they were just called the Taint (Mom, maybe don't look that one up if you don't know). And when one of the Taint is described fighting, running, whatever, it just doesn't sound right. I know this is such a minor thing, but I really wish the group was just called something else or instead of saying Taint, just saying one of the Tainted.

Overall though, I was just bored. It took me 3 months to plow through this book. Three months of swearing and muttering and just hating the whole book. If something happened, I just didn't care. The premise was great, and the cliffhanger almost hooked me, but I fear I'll just be too bored if I continue reading this series.

So The Girl and the Stars get a whopping 1 star from me. I did like the base idea of the story, but overall, I was bored. Maybe it's better if you read Lawrence's previous works, but after hearing that he writes about a lot of sexual assault and sends his fans to attack critics of his works, I think I'll pass on the rest of his works.

exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to read this book!

Check out more of my reviews on my blog: 

Eryn Bradshaw

Life on the ice doesn't allow for weakness. Weakness only brings death. Once every few years, the tribes living on the ice come together for their children to be judged by the priests. If the child is deemed not strong enough for the ice, they are thrown into The Pit. Yaz is facing her second judgment and if she is cleared, then she will be marked as an adult. Her younger brother, Zeen, is facing judgment for the first time. When Zeen is pushed into the pit by the priest, Yaz loses all sense and jumps in after him. The world she ends up in is unexpected. Found by The Broken, she is taken in and taught about life under the ice, all while searching for her brother. Yaz faces unexpected dangers and new forces of power while living under the ice. Secrets are uncovered and she must understand them in order to overcome dangers unknown.

To preface this, I've not read any of Mark Lawrence's previous works. Although this series stands alone from his other books, I understand this trilogy is in the same world as another of his series. I am not sure if reading this previous series would have increased my enjoyment of this book or not, so be your own judge here if you'd like background knowledge on this fictional world he's created.

I liked the premise of this book, secrets, and mysteries that needed solving all while in a strange land hooked me. But the execution fell completely on its face, to be completely honest.

I think I must have missed a lot of world-building by not reading the previous books in the world because I felt very tossed into this Ice Land. While I'm all for not pandering to the reader and being really obvious about the world-building, I just felt like I was missing out on a lot. Granted, I can't say this for certain because I didn't read the previous books in this world, so I could be completely off-base here.

I found myself just not caring about the characters. Yaz was so boring. Her one goal in life was to save her brother. And in between these moments of reflecting on her brother, she was checking out all the eligible (and some non-eligible) men and how cute they were. Then throw in the love square. Because having a female teenage protagonist means any man around her age just wants her, of course. This book suffered from having too many characters to keep up with as well. The number of characters the reader is introduced to is absurd, especially because most of them aren't prominent enough to really remember that well either.

One thing that really bugged me, which really might not matter in the scheme of things, but really put me off was the naming of the rival group under the ice. They are called the Tainted. Makes sense because they are literally tainted from consuming the black ice (which is a whole thing I won't bother getting into). However, when referring to a singular member of the Tainted, they were just called the Taint (Mom, maybe don't look that one up if you don't know). And when one of the Taint is described fighting, running, whatever, it just doesn't sound right. I know this is such a minor thing, but I really wish the group was just called something else or instead of saying Taint, just saying one of the Tainted.

Overall though, I was just bored. It took me 3 months to plow through this book. Three months of swearing and muttering and just hating the whole book. If something happened, I just didn't care. The premise was great, and the cliffhanger almost hooked me, but I fear I'll just be too bored if I continue reading this series.

So The Girl and the Stars get a whopping 1 star from me. I did like the base idea of the story, but overall, I was bored. Maybe it's better if you read Lawrence's previous works, but after hearing that he writes about a lot of sexual assault and sends his fans to attack critics of his works, I think I'll pass on the rest of his works.

Harper Collins UK provided a copy of The Girl and the Stars through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to read this book!

Check out more of my reviews on my blog: https://erynbradshaw.wordpress.com

Celeste Richardson

Actual rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher (Ace) in exchange for an honest review.
“Many babies have killed, but it is very rare that the victim is not their mother.”
So begins Mark Lawrence’s newest novel, The Girl and the Stars. As always, Lawrence knows how to captivate an audience and set the tone for the book all within the first sentence. We know immediately that Yaz of the Ictha, our perspective character, is an uncommon child. On the Ice, difference can be a death sentence. And not just because those differences often render their bearer vulnerable, but because children who are too different, broken in the eyes of their elders, end up being tossed into the Pit. And that is the end that Yaz envisions for herself with a hard clarity. But when the time comes for her to face the push that will send her into the abyss, things go differently that she had always imagined. What she fully expected to be the end of her story turned out to be its true beginning.
“We are the unwanted, the things of such little use that they are thrown away. We are what is beyond repair. We are the Broken.”
The idea of tribes as both extended family and the roots of identity is a dominant theme in The Girl and the Stars, as is the prospect of found family versus families related by blood. If you’ve read Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor trilogy, you’re already familiar with both the importance of blood in the magic system and the power of the families one can build around oneself. I have a serious soft spot for any strongly tied grouping that feels like family, whether that family is genetic or gathered over the course of a life. I was happy to see that explored a bit in this book, and I believe it will be an important element of the books that follow.
“Did beauty need an observer to matter? Was anything beautiful without someone to think it so?”
I thoroughly enjoyed being given the chance to revisit Abeth, and to see it from an unfamiliar angle. It’s really interesting to get the same world and magic from a different perspective. The new ways in which these are viewed and conveyed add a depth to the world building. At first glance, life on the Ice is so radically different from the setting of Nona’s story in the Book of the Ancestor that it’s difficult to find much commonality. But as the story progresses we are shown more and more the ties that bind two such dissimilar ways of life irrevocably together. I also found the subterranean setting of the majority of the book quite fascinating. It’s a hidden world that was touched on in the Book of the Ancestor, but I enjoyed seeing it further fleshed out here. Cold, wind, and the Ice are the most important aspects of life here because they’re the most dangerous. It’s interesting to see to what extent these elements dominate every single moment in the minds of those who dwell within it.
“…it’s better to die trying for a life we can take for ourselves than to die fighting each other in the dark for an existence we were condemned to.”
While I found the world building and the quality of the writing in The Girl and the Stars just as exemplary as that of the Book of the Ancestor trilogy, I found myself unable to love this story with quite the same intensity. I think this disconnect was due in large part to the characters. While I liked Yaz and respected her steadfast loyalty, she didn’t have the same depth in my opinion as Nona. I also found her a bit too akin to a Young Adult heroine, especially since almost every male with a pulse, and one that I’m pretty sure doesn’t even have one, seemed completely infatuated with her. Yaz is also a weird combination of helpless and all-powerful, which again reminded me of a heroine from so many YA novels. 
“It’s a dangerous game to try to rid yourself of weakness. You never know what else you might lose in the deal.”
Another thing that threw me out of the story on occasion was actually one of my favorite elements of any Lawrence book I’ve read thus far: the writing. Lawrence tends to wax philosophical quite often, which I always love. I always heavily highlight his books, and this one was no exception. He had some truly profound things to say, and he said them well. However, due to the fact that the heroine and the novel itself felt more YA in tone than the preceding trilogy, I found that these philosophical passages didn’t quite mesh with the rest of the story, and even felt a bit self-indulgent. Anytime a character embarked on an esoteric monologue, it felt incredibly out of character to the point where said character felt more like a ventriloquist dummy than an autonomous being. I hate that I found this so jarring, but it further hindered my ability to connect with Yaz and her compatriots on any emotional level. I also found the subtle science fiction and post apocalyptic undertones more distracting here than I did in the preceding trilogy, as did the occasional references to our own world. The balance was just off in my opinion.
“She understood that she wasn’t the selfish voice, or the kind one—she was the sum of a multitude, normally joined so close the seams didn’t show, but liable to fall apart under stress. Everyone was. A mix, a recipe, the sum of their parts and more.”
I might not have loved Yaz are her story with the same fervor I felt for Nona and her fellow nuns, but Lawrence told an incredibly interesting tale with The Girl and the Stars. He did a brilliant job of showcasing the same world from a different angle, highlighting facets that had previously been in the shadows. I’m interested to see what Abeth holds next for Yaz, and what impact Yaz will in kind have on Abeth.

You can find  this review and more at Novel Notions.

Judy Hudgins

I enjoyed The Book of the Ancestor series, but couldn't get into this one. Might just be me and how busy I am currently.

Only when it's darkest can you see the stars. East of the Black Rock, out on the ice, lies a hole down which broken children are thrown. On the vastness of the ice there is no room for individuals. No one survives alone. Torn from her family, Yaz has to carve a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected.

Rowan Jones

1.5*

The narrator: amazing, talented, perfect, unique ✅
The writing: beautiful, such good prose ✅
Thurin: the only character I felt even a smidge of emotion for ✅
The magic system: interesting and same as the book of the ancestor trilogy so I don't count it for this book
_____________________________________

The plot: simultaneously nonexistent yet convoluted ❌
The romance(s) : DEAD. No chemistry ❌
The characters: FLAT. I did not give one single fuck about any of them or anything that happened to them. I didn't even hate any of them I just felt nothing ❌
The main character: not like other girls, plain yet 3 guys like her???? Obsessed with finding her brother and no regard for anything else ❌
The... Villain(s) ? : boring, no real explanation for motivations ❌
The amount of times the word 'ictha' appeared in this book: countless ❌

It took me a whole month to read all of this and I absolutely hated the whole experience. I even sped it up to 2x for the last 5 hours (I usually listen at 1.4x). 
This is my most disappointing read of the year and possibly my whole life. The Book of the Ancestor trilogy is one of my favourite series of all time and this is set in the same universe but it is absolutely nothing like those books. I'm so incredibly sad and angry at this book.

From the critically-acclaimed author of PRINCE OF THORNS and RED SISTER comes a chilling new epic fantasy series. 'If you like dark you will love Mark Lawrence. And when the light breaks through and it all makes sense, the contrast is gorgeous' ROBIN HOBB Only when it's darkest can you see the stars.

The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice, Book 1)

Garren

Another great Mark Lawrence book. The world building was fantastic and the book ends on a real cliff hanger.

Per Christian B. Viken

Lucy Richards 

The Girl and the Moon

The third thrilling novel in an epic fantasy series set in the same world as the wildly popular Red Sister, following an outcast who will fight with everything she has to survive.

Sky m

Liliana Afonso

Dan Peterson

Tetiana Bilokin

Aphrodite bartels

Second novel in the chilling and epic new fantasy series from the bestselling and critically-acclaimed author of PRINCE OF THORNS and RED SISTER. 'If you like dark you will love Mark Lawrence. And when the light breaks through and it all makes sense, the contrast is gorgeous' ROBIN HOBB

The Girl and the Mountain

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